So I've been wondering, what are those games that make you want to smash the keyboard/controller/TV yet you keep on playing again and again? Or maybe make you quit playing altogether?

For me, it's Mario Kart. I love Mario Kart, it's fun, it's addictive, yet it can also be incredibly frustrating. When, for the umpteenth time, you get hit by literally 4 or so items in direct succession on the last turn of the last lap and end up in near-last instead of first, it makes me want to punch something. I understand that the chaotic nature of the game can also work in the player's favor but still. And this is the DS version of the game. I hear the Wii version is considerably worse.

Also the freeware platformer N. This one is just brutally unforgiving of the slightest mistake, which makes it very punishing yet somehow addictive.

So what games make you rage? And is it poor game design or fair-but-hard in your opinion?

I've been working my way through Demon's Souls. Most of the RAGE comes from the inability to pause the game and go enjoy a cigarette every so often. Tis a game that frays the nerves, but hasn't felt unfair yet...

bthylafh wrote:Last one I remember cursing at was Mario Galaxy, one of its jumping puzzles. I hate jumping puzzles; they're just an exercise in split-second timing.

The ultimate expression of this need for precise and accurate timing would have to be NES Battletoads, which was so hard as to be unfair.

Wasn't there Battletoads for the Genesis too? I think my friend had that game and it was really hard. If the NES version was even harder I can't even imagine.

A lot of those games were hard back then though. I got SMB3 for the GBA and I never quite finished it because it got rage-inducing hard in the later portions. Either they had started to tone down the difficulty when I started gaming in the 16-bit era, or maybe my skills just rusted, because I never had the trouble with Super Mario World that I had with SMB3.

When I saw the thread title I immediately thought of Mario Kart Wii. Sometimes I swear that game is rigged so that skill level doesn't actually matter. Being good at the game only gets you blue-shelled more often.

BobbinThreadbare wrote:

sweatshopking wrote:

bthylafh wrote:Last one I remember cursing at was Mario Galaxy, one of its jumping puzzles. I hate jumping puzzles; they're just an exercise in split-second timing.

The ultimate expression of this need for precise and accurate timing would have to be NES Battletoads, which was so hard as to be unfair.

wut? hating MARIO for jumping puzzles? wtf? THE GAME IS THE GAME THAT IS WORLDS MOST SUCCESSFUL JUMPING GAME. OF COURSE IT'S AN EXERCISE IN SPLITSECOND TIMING...

This. You are playing Mario despite hating jumping puzzles? May I suggest you try another game, preferably one that isn't in the genre of games you hate.

If I'm thinking of the level he is, I don't blame him. There was one puzzle in particular where I believe you had to get 100 coins while the tiles, arranged to resemble 8-bit Mario, vanished (and/or started spinning? It's been a while) after you jumped on them. That one took me at least a couple of hours.

I find this discussion interesting, as I personally make a very strict distinction between "good difficulty" and "bs. difficulty".

"Good difficulty": when a game makes you work harder, demands more of you, makes you play better. Ex.: Starcraft 2. The harder difficulty levels are tough but fun. Most old-school RPGs let you have more than enough rope to hang yourself, and then a few feet more.

"Bs. difficulty: when the game simply decides to rip you off for no good reason. Ex: setting Call of Duty or something to max difficulty in which enemies can somehow see and headshoot you a million miles away. That doesn't demand anything from you. See also the forementioned Battletoads. The infamous flying sequence was not an exercise in reflexes and coordination, it was an exercise in memory. Anyone remember Mortal Kombat 2 singleplayer? An exercise in frustration since the AI player could always grab you from whatever distance, and pull off moves with timings that you couldn't (thankfully MP was where it was at).

There is a fixed amount of intelligence on the planet, and the population keeps growing :(

Probably DOA4 above all else. They couldn't make a decent AI so they just made cheaters to varying degrees. That last boss was total BS. Having fought it well over 100 times for costume unlocks and such I believe it may have shortened my shelf life by a few months.

MixedPower wrote:When I saw the thread title I immediately thought of Mario Kart Wii. Sometimes I swear that game is rigged so that skill level doesn't actually matter. Being good at the game only gets you blue-shelled more often.

The stupid thing about the Blue Shell is it doesn't even really help the near-last player who uses it. It helps the 2nd and 3rd player. So it's in there not to help the struggling player but explicitly to punish the good player, which is inexcusable. I have to admit the Blue Shell sometimes helps you if you're in second place but really, it's a crummy item and should be seriously rethought in future installments.

I think maybe they purposefully downplayed skill and upped the random factor in Mario Kart Wii since the console is targeted at a more casual audience. So that Joe Gamer's mom has a much better chance than warranted by skill to be competitive. Hopefully with the Wii U and perhaps the 3DS being targeted at a more hardcore audience they will rebalance the game back to a more sensible way.

morphine wrote:I find this discussion interesting, as I personally make a very strict distinction between "good difficulty" and "bs. difficulty".

I definitely agree with this distinction but it's still incredibly subjective. What one player finds to be legitimate another will see as cheap. I think in general though the less based in skill and the more out of the player's hands the nature of the difficulty is, the more people will rightly perceive it as cheap.

Many timed challenges of the GTA line (mostly newer GTA's). You keep on trying them over and over for 100 times until you throw in the towel and just never bother to play the game ever again in your life.

There was a certain part in Sonic Adventures (2?) that had me screaming at my TV. I believe it was one of Knuckle's levels. I would also get pretty angry at just about every Metroid game I played, especially the one for GBA. Besides that, I mainly just rage at the d bags in black ops who sit in corners with ghost, a silencer, and last stand pro. Thank goodness for the new zombie pack and the new express playlist, because I was about to sell that god forsaken game.

ALiLPinkMonster wrote:Besides that, I mainly just rage at the d bags in black ops who sit in corners with ghost, a silencer, and last stand pro.

I know what you mean. I play a lot of Bad Company 2, and when people start just using 40mm and RPGs on infantry, or half the team on hardcore maps decides to go sniper and ignore the objectives, it's time to move on to another server. I hate that kind of "you can't even touch me" mechanics (obs: not snipers per se, just the way they're implemented in BC2 hardcore).

There is a fixed amount of intelligence on the planet, and the population keeps growing :(

thegleek wrote:Many timed challenges of the GTA line (mostly newer GTA's). You keep on trying them over and over for 100 times until you throw in the towel and just never bother to play the game ever again in your life.

OMG, i thought i was the only, this is the only reason i never bothered with GTA series after wasting hundred of hours trying to complete Aeroplane and helicopter mission in GTA san andreas.

League of Legends because people who are pro will troll you the entire game while you're getting your ass kicked. And your rage will just drive you to want to kill even more yet get yourself killed making you rage even harder near the point of heart attack.

MixedPower wrote:This. You are playing Mario despite hating jumping puzzles? May I suggest you try another game, preferably one that isn't in the genre of games you hate.

If I'm thinking of the level he is, I don't blame him. There was one puzzle in particular where I believe you had to get 100 coins while the tiles, arranged to resemble 8-bit Mario, vanished (and/or started spinning? It's been a while) after you jumped on them. That one took me at least a couple of hours.[/quote]

Never been so pissed off in my life. All so my son could play as Luigi. lol

derFunkenstein wrote:For me the last games to make me rage a royal raging fit were Demon's Souls and Ninja Gaiden II Sigma. Those were both brutally hard.

Hard or cheap? I hear people Demon's Souls as truly hard, and others describing it as simply cheap.

I guess Demon's Souls can be considered "cheap" in that dying makes you restart the whole level. In this day and age with checkpoints around every corner, and the occasional game that still lets you save anywhere, that can be considered "cheap", I guess. I just consider it "punishing", but when you finally do win it's a lot more satisfying than a lot of other games.

EDIT: Full disclosure, I just beat the first level after more than ten tries. Even watched a video walkthrough just to make sure I wasn't doing everything bass-ackwards. I'm still kinda loopy from the satisfaction of getting to that second Archstone.

And do tell why "looting" makes people RAGE for? If the developers of the game ALLOW such event to happen, then so be it. I mean you take 5-10 minutes to kill a monster and out pops 500 zenny and some rare weapon, and along comes some dude (maybe me? lol) and BAM! I got all your LOOT without the fight! SO AWESOME for me.. .For you --- RAGE! lol

Anyways, the game I am referring to in this particular instance is Ragnarok Online.

assasin's creed 2, the section where you're trying to win a timed race through a course. I *still* haven't beaten that (anyone know cheats for the 360 so I can move on?!). Love the game to that point, but I cannot beat the 2 minute or whatever it is timer to get the GD golden mask.

Ugly people have sex all the time. We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion humans if you had to be beautiful to get laid.